The Wolf Hammer, page 19
part #1 of Odin's Bastard Series
He sounded like he was quite proud of himself.
Borin spat. “Where is it, then?”
Yggra laughed darkly like a wight. “Oh, I had to trade it.”
“What?” Borin roared. “Trade it?”
“Well, I have recently been plagued by my brother’s newly found success, and you bastards,” he said. “I am sure he had Father killed, and he riled me up to do some idiotic shit.” He blinked. “Wait. You. You did it.”
I said nothing.
He tried to weep but could only manage to shake. Borin squeezed his neck. Then he went on. “When I saw Tarl Vittar’s face today in the docks, I suddenly knew how to get back to favor.” He grinned and hissed whispers, weak. “Naergoth has been seeking it high and low. He has hired spies left and right too. They want the book. They do want it. So, I dared not give it to him, but to Tarl Vittar, who could give it to Naergoth, in exchange for the elven support for his preferred marriage. He wants Rikas to marry Reignhelm, see? Tarl accepted. He will support me against Eglin, and he will…well, I suppose I won’t see any of it.”
“My wife,” I asked him. “You do not have her? Nor my nephew.”
“I never saw her,” he rasped.
“Baiae, Baiae,” I said miserably.
“Let me go,” he begged of Borin.
Borin grinned and let go of his throat. Yggra fell lifeless. His eyes rolled over, as Borin let go of him.
I held my head.
I hammered my skull and winced with the pain.
I rubbed at the pain in my head, cursed, and peered up at Borin.
He looked at me with simmering anger. “Looks like Tarl is indeed our next target. And Naergoth, if he gave the book away. You feel up to fighting the elf?”
I nodded.
“You have to use that hammer,” he said. “It makes their spells weak and protects you from fire, I think. And you have to truly let go and to remember all they did to you. Just let the hate out. Kill, kill. Kill until no elf remains. Can you do that?”
“Yes!” I roared.
“Good. Fight now,” he said.
“What?”
His eyes shot up. He hauled me up, pushing me to a doorway leading up.
And then, as if summoned, the elf appeared.
The men, some thirty who survived, were standing around us silently when I heard a noise.
I glanced over my shoulder, down to the way we had used, and there, in that doorway, leaned an elf on a staff.
“So, Hagar,” he said darkly. “We found you, the bane of Aeginhamn. Spawn of evil. And I couldn’t see you. I was looking into the city, and you were getting inside it, hidden in the most obvious place; amid scum of your own people. What are you planning, I wonder? Nay. Never mind. I will guard Midgard well tonight. Good thing we were warned.”
Borin roared, and the men whirled, pulling weapons, and the elf’s eyes hardened.
He also changed. The male’s face flowed into furious female face, and the staff flowed into a bright sword, glowing like a star. Her armor was white, and her hair golden.
Our men ran at her.
An elf who has practiced and studied magic can be a fantastic entertainer.
Dancing fires, ice on your mead, rain when you need it.
An elf scheming to kill you, armed with ancient magic, well versed in the Glory, rather than the Gift?
Deadly.
And what I knew to be one of Odin’s warrioress, a Valkyrie, would be far too powerful to fight. Dozen elves, more followed her in, grim and holding spells and swords.
That mighty being braided together several spells as she jumped back.
One was a spell of the guard.
A silvery shield grew around her, barely perceptible. Dust and spiderwebs burned brightly as the shield touched them.
The second was a spell of stone.
The stone under our feet twisted and came alive.
Spikes, many inches long, thousands of them, grew from under our feet. The room rocked, and sharp barbs punched up. Our men howled, screamed, and fell, many on the spikes. It looked like a scythe had harvested a field of wheat. Borin was hauling at me, howling as he crashed me out of the room for a doorway with a mark scratched on top.
We fell on spikes, rolling over them, and I screamed with pain, as several punctured my thigh.
We ran up the way. The stone beneath us was shaking again and breaking apart, as stony hands grew from the walls and floor. We kicked and broke many, ran up like hares, and there, on top, came to a room.
“She is coming,” Borin hissed needlessly. “We have to kill them!”
Of course, she was.
“Are you ready?” he asked. “This is your hour of vengeance. You take it, boy. Now. For all our sakes! Kill that bitch!
“What?” I asked.
“Take the damned hammer!”
I peeked below.
Radiating furious power, the Valkyrie was making her way up. The way was filled with beautiful, deadly elves. There were ten, then twenty.
One, a blue-eyed female, spotted me and stopped and stepped past the glowing Aesir.
Borin pulled me aside. A loud cracking noise reverberated against the walls, a clap that deafened us, and a bright bit of lightning tore past us, and struck the room, ricocheting around wildly.
“She is just a demi-god,” he said, shaking me. “She can die!”
I cursed, hesitated, and grasped my hammer, my ears ringing, eyes blurry. I pushed him aside.
An elf appeared on the doorway, and Borin tossed a rock at him, toppling him over.
“Fast!” he howled. “Now!”
I felt the power under my hand, and then I tore off the bag.
I put my finger on it, and then my hands curled around it.
I screamed as the pain made my teeth clatter, and the whole weapon was engulfed in fire immediately, the wolf’s head was spewing blood-red flames. It danced across the weapon and my arms. I spat ashes and tasted smoke and fire. The evil, stench of death filled my nostrils, and my mouth, and I spat, spewing flames.
“She is here, the murderess,” Borin yelled, and I knew he had been yelling it for a while. “Just below. Wake up! Kill them all! For your mother! Wife!”
I turned a corner. I seemed to fill much of it.
“Bastards,” I laughed, and the voice sounded like it had been torn from rocks. “No women here for you to harm. No girls to slay. Just me. Odin’s justice.”
The Valkyrie stopped, her sword out. She released a spell, and stone ran up my feet, holding me. She laughed mockingly, and began walking up, her people behind her.
I roared my anger at them, impotent, stuck and struck the hammer at the walls.
She shook her beautiful head. “Come to Hildr, the guard of Midgard. I shall make an end of this, you seed of evil. Long have I been blind. No longer.”
And then, I felt something.
I saw a dark, black shadowy hand, reaching out, so very fast.
It tapped my bracer, and it fell open.
And suddenly, growing, bursting with power, with terrible rage, I tore my feet out of the rock. The Aesir stopped, and I felt like I was growing, thickening, and suddenly, I felt and saw the great torrents of magic, and most of all, I saw fire.
The elves stopped, and stared at me, and I, filling the way, ran down at them.
The Aesir saw me coming. She screamed, and stabbed up, the bright sword out, and I, roaring, released a storm of fire around me, as I came down on her, a fiend of flames. I felt stabbing pain in my chest, then the hammer smote down on her, crushing her skull. I danced on her, bashing and ripping her down, howling and letting go fire. The hammer hacked left, it hacked right, and I ran down that elf-filled way, stomping and crushing elven kin, leaving them in flames by dozens, so fast they could only turn.
And all the way down, over the dead, one last elf turned to fight, and roaring with hate for the lot, I struck the hammer down as hard as I could. The mountain seemed to split, like the elf did. The halls shook, and walls broke. I fell, climbed up, and ran up, as the ceiling was buckling. I was stumbling on the remains of the Exiles, and kicked at the broken Valkyrie, as I passed it. I got out on top, just as the passageway collapsed behind me.
I rolled out of the way and up to the top. Spitting ash and fire, I suddenly felt something choking me, and pressure on my wrist.
I fell on my face, howling for I suddenly felt weak, confused and robbed of my power, and rested my head on the cold stone.
***
Later, I woke. I found Borin, who was staring at me.
I got up and felt sick.
The hammer was no longer in my hand, bloody and torn that it was.
“It let go when you fell down,” he said. “It is right there.”
“There was something—” I said and watched the hammer.
I saw it on the stone, seemingly no more than a weapon. The leather bag was near it.
I whirled to see a collapsed tunnel, and a cracked roof.
He shrugged and smiled. “You did so very well. You just killed a lot of our foes. And Naergoth especially. Imagine, it was an Aesir all along! Few could have accomplished all this.”
I touched my wrist.
In it, the bracer.
“I was strong, big,” I whispered.
“No,” he said. “Just a hero.”
I shook my head.
He smiled. “So, I think getting you answers will be hard.”
“No, there was more,” I said.
“Fine,” he sighed. “But let us go. You did us all a great favor, and now we have to help ourselves. How do we get out?” he asked me.
I was rubbing my head.
Power. Such power. Terrifying, careless power, anger and rage and pain. Murder.
I had been all that.
It was a dream?
Or not?
I was trying to remember all of it.
Then I remembered the rest of it. Yggra, denying everything. Borin, urging me to fight.
“Well,” he said softly, eyeing me carefully, “do wake up. Questions later. We don’t have much choice but to go up. I went up there, and there is a ladder. It takes us to the castle.” He looked at my bedraggled state. “You have a bad wound on your chest. Deep as sin. Smells like rot.”
I belched ash and turned to look. My chest was ripped open. I could see flesh and bone.
“Stitches won’t help,” he winked.
I leaned on the wall, covering the wound with my ripped cloak, not daring to look at it.
“You have, perhaps, redeemed yourself,” he murmured.
My eyes shifted from him to the hammer. “Redeemed?”
He shrugged. “We have to get out.” He lifted one eyebrow.
“The city.”
He nodded. “Can you walk?”
“What do I look like,” I asked him, “when I used the weapon?”
“Crazy,” he said. “Sort of gray and dark. Please let go now. We must go.”
“I felt impregnable,” I said. “But elven magic and steel can kill me.”
He nodded. “True. It is a cursed one, indeed, the hammer. But we have to discuss our issues. We cannot get back down. Can you walk, I asked you.”
I lifted my hand and rubbed at the skin and flesh beneath. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“You don’t have to worry about the High King,” he said. “Let’s just try to get down there to the lower city. We’ll kill the later.”
I made it to my feet and swooned with the pain. “No. Well, get them this night. Naergoth…Hildr?”
He nodded.
“She is gone, but we couldn’t have forced him to speak anyway. The High King will tell me what I still wish to know.” I winced. “He claimed not to have my wife. Or Morag. And he claimed he had not—"
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Hagar. That Hildr, an Aesir likely let Yggra molest your mother, and then she did kill her. She is not human. She has her reasons, I am sure, and none would be good to us. We have to think about it. They’ll attack the city soon. Sorry.”
“What?”
“You were passed out for hours,” he said. “It is soon dawn. We have wasted the night, and our boys will come up soon. I know it for certain.”
“No!” I said. “They’ll…”
He grinned. “I couldn’t raise you. And I couldn't go up alone. So here we are. Our plans will have to wait. You and I must get out. We can, as they try. We won’t take the city. The mercenaries will surely fail. We’ll just march up there and try to find an opportunity during the battle to get out. Then, later, with what we have left, we will get to Reignhelm. We will take Tarl and everyone you fancy as prisoners and get that book for us. Not this night. It is over.”
He looked as unhappy as I was about it.
“We can’t wait,” I told him. “They will butcher the men.”
“Aye,” Borin said tiredly. “Shian will be fine. She had the knack for it.”
“By marching up the track to the fort?” I snarled. “They’ll get slaughtered like any lamb!”
“Not much worse odds than taking that little keep with the High King inside,” he said seriously. “But we have to be patient. Tarl Vittar has the Black Tales. That’s good to know. We can work with that.”
“Unless the bitch already had it,” I said, looking at the caved in tunnel.
“Well,” Borin said. “I guess we know where to find him, then.”
I got up. “Let’s go up and see what’s out there, at least.”
He sighed. “Fine. Let’s go and see if we can get out somehow. The gate might have a side door for sorties, and if they attack, it could be taken, eh? You cannot fight, though. You are exhausted and probably dying.”
I was.
My face was bruised, and the helmet was dented. My armor was dusty and bloodied, and my cloak was a nearly destroyed wreck.
I wrapped my hand and pushed the hammer carefully to the bag, feeling the painful power slicing through the cloth. I lifted the bag and put it around me.
Borin slapped his knee and nodded. “Let us go.”
We walked up to the path, and I grew weaker by the moment. Far, far up the dusty, rocky road that had been used not too long ago to smuggle goods to the city, we found a ladder. Borin climbed it and came to what was a carpet covering a hole.
He pushed it aside, waited, and then he pulled himself up. I climbed after—he helped me—as I followed him to a dark room.
It seemed empty and silent.
“Here,” Borin said as he found a doorway, and without hesitancy, he pushed it open.
Outside, the sound of music wafted to our ears. It didn’t seem to come from the building, but from above, and Borin turned to me. “Inside the walls, but not in the tower itself.”
I nodded. “Let’s go and see. It will be dark.”
“Not dark enough,” he murmured. “Come.”
We stepped to the room, found an abandoned house, and walked for an open window. A cat was sitting on it, and then it hopped away, hissing.
“Check the chests,” Borin rumbled. “Need something to cover you up.”
“The attack will start very soon,” I said, as I saw a slight bit of light across the sky from the window.
At that moment, we heard a voice.
A gasp.
At the doorway, an old man was standing, with a bag on his shoulder. He had heard us.
He smiled. He took a step back.
Borin sighed. “Shit.”
The man, some sort of merchant and smuggler, ripped open the door and disappeared outside, screaming. The cat hissed nearby. We heard questions and jingle of amour.
Then someone was yelling something else. “Raise! To the arms!”
I cursed and jumped back and forth, bleeding terribly. “Shit and bother, damn it!”
“Well?” Borin asked.
I cursed again, and Borin was laughing softly.
Bastard.
“We go outside,” I told him. “Slink to the shadows, find the gate. Just pretend we belong.”
“Wherever you wish to die,” he said. “We could see if they have anything to drink here before we go?”
I guided him ahead of me, and we walked out. We came to see the high wall of the White Tower itself above us to the left, and the castle and its many tiered roads led higher on the hill to the right.
There was only that one wall, and the tower was actually a set of castles, all connected with small bridges.
And then, out in the night, the horns of the army were blowing.
Our army. Our men.
The attack had started.
We darted to the city and heard men running all around us now. They were on the walls, behind and in the castle, calling out. The sound of revelry on top turned into screams and calls of alarm. We ran past men rushing to posts, darting out from what was likely an armory and the barracks toward the walls.
We floated along with them, pretending to belong.
Not far ahead, we saw the gate, with an ugly, brute of a tower on top. We hopped along. I nearly slipped in the slick stones, and then we saw the gate.
Up on top of it, men were preparing defenses and lighting fires.
“Cauldrons?” I asked.
“Ajax told me they have many nasty traps and oil up there,” he agreed, “and below on the next deck, ballistae that can shatter ranks coming up. You look pale.”
I felt dizzy, blood dripping down my leg. “Forget me. Let’s find a gate. Side gate.”
“We have to go to the tower, see?” he said, and nodded at a doorway in the wall, next to the tower.
Men were rushing up to it.
I shook my head and drew the burned cloak and hood tight around me. “They’ll not be fooled.”
He grunted assent.
“We could just hide?” Shian whispered, and we both jumped and turned, our eyes staring at her.
“You idiot!” Borin roared. “You utter fool! How did you—”
She smiled. “I have my ways in. I climbed the wall. One man or woman can do it. I was worried and found the way below blocked, our men dead. But not you two. They will start the attack. We should go.”
“You were not supposed to—“ Borin roared, but she snapped at his nose with her finger.
